AfriLabs was founded in 2011 to build a community around rapidly emerging tech hubs―innovation spaces that serve as meeting points and communities for developers, entrepreneurs, and investors.
We believe that supporting the development of the African technology and innovation ecosystem enables Africa to participate in the global knowledge and innovation market place thereby stimulating economic growth.
AfriLabs supports its community members to partner with national governments, regional bodies and local & international non-governmental policy advocates to seed policies that help nurture the innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem.
Mali, Senegal, Nigeria, Rwanda, Niger. We achieve this through our partnerships with the AU and other African countries, the Office of ICT Innovation and Entrepreneurship OIIE, I4Policy Foundation (a partner community with shared members) and the National ICT Innovation and Entrepreneurship Policy NIIEV.
Over the years, AfriLabs has carried out research on African hub needs, capacity gaps and best practices. Based on this research, AfriLabs designs and runs a series of initiatives targeting hubs. These initiatives have now been updated and expanded into the AfriLabs Capacity Building Programme (ACBP), 2m euro capacity building project, being implemented thanks to Agence Française de Développement (AFD)’s support through the Digital Africa seed fund. Through this programme, AfriLabs connects African tech hubs in peer to peer learning workshops called the AfriLabs Hubs Learning Week. We believe that if they learn from one another, they will serve their communities better and will further encourage collaboration.
As a network, AfriLabs has a handful of core competencies—things we do really well. But we can maximize our impact by partnering with others who are committed to fostering African tech, entrepreneurship and innovation. For example, AfriLabs has organized the AfriLabs Annual Gathering for over 4 years with partners like Making All Voices Count (MAVC), Microsoft 4Afrika, Facebook, Hivos, African Union, Liquid Telecom, United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, UNCTAD, Africa Development Bank Group, Mozilla, Kenya Airways etc. AfriLabs has also organized ecosystem events like the 1% Club ‘Supersize The Valley’ Conference, Virtual Dialogues on COVID-19, the Swedish Program for ICT in Developing Regions (SPIDER) ICT4SI West Africa Workshop etc.
Our mission is to support innovation hubs and their communities to raise high potential entrepreneurs that will stimulate economic growth and social development in Africa. We achieve this through capacity building, financing, networking, policy advocacy, and providing insightful, reliable data .
Our vision is a thriving innovation economy in Africa, driven by the power of our community.
AfriLabs was founded with 5 Hubs. NaiLab Kenya, iHub Kenya, Hive Colab Uganda,Banta Labs Senegal, Activ Spaces Cameroun.
AfriLabs Partnered with Hivos & Indigo Trust.
AfriLabs hired its first Executive Director.
AfriLabs was formally registered as a foundation.
AfriLabs got involved with the World Bank InfoDev Virtual Incubation project.
AfriLabs partnered with Microsoft 4Afrika and The Rockefeller foundation.
AfriLabs had its first global meet-up in Berlin supported by Global Innovation Gathering.
AfriLabs held its 2nd global meetup in Berlin.
AfriLabs collaborated with The Rockefeller Foundation to launch a Digital jobs challenge.
AfriLabs hosted the Hub sustainability series with AfriHive.
AfriLabs held its first African meetup in Egypt.
AfriLabs website was created and branding was carried out.
AfriLabs launched a partnership with OSIWA to explore Hubs as creative spaces.
AfriLabs set up its first secretariat in Abuja, Nigeria headed by Anna Ekeledo.
AfriLabs set up its first secretariat in Abuja, Nigeria headed by Anna Ekeledo.
AfriLabs launched a series of regional city meet ups in Nairobi, Lagos, Cairo, Johannesburg and Senegal.
MAVC partnership (AfriLabs Annual Gathering, Organizational support, Learning platform, City meet ups in Dakar, Johannesburg, Cairo, Lagos and Nairobi).
AfriLabs had its first African Annual Gathering, which took place in Accra, Ghana.
AfriLabs held its first virtual board elections in March 2017
AfriLabs held its first Hubs Learning Week in August, sponsored by MAVC.
The 2017 Annual Gathering took place in Cairo, Egypt hosted by The District and co-organized by Hivos and AfriLabs.
AfriLabs launches the AfriLabs Capacity Building Programme (ACBP), a 2 million euros capacity building programme funded by the AFD through its Digital Africa fund.
AfriLabs joins The Global EdTech Hub with The University of Cambridge, The Overseas Development Institute, Results for Development, Brink, Jigsaw, Open Development and Education, INJINI, e-Learning Africa and BRAC.
AfriLabs launches The Catalyst with ABAN, a programme to support the African startup ecosystem while addressing the various gaps associated with funding for startups.
AfriLabs launches the Hub Academy in partnership with Liquid Telecoms. This initiative aims to provide a learning platform to AfriLabs member hubs, so that, they may offer training and upskilling support to their communities.
AfriLabs partners with the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) to launch the Open Database, an Open Data platform for the African entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystem.
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